Notes / Commercial Description:
Clown Shoes Albino Cetaceous Release #1
Sometimes there are many words. Other times there are no words. We aged Chocolate Sombrero in Cognac barrels, making less than 100 cases of beer. For this we could only find one word. Millonario! Millonario! Millonario!

S: Some chalky, charry oak. Light bits of dark fruit and berries. Hint of roasted malt in the char and a little bittersweet cocoa. Maybe cinnamon?

T: Oh yeah, definitely cinnamon. Cinnamon and some light chili peppers up front. Smoky, chalky and charry, must be chipotles or similar roasted chili peppers? Bittersweet cocoa is pretty much everywhere, much like a stoneground mexican chocolate. A little bit of smoky heat in the finish with more char and just a little oak to boot.

M: Heavy, smoky, spicy and a little bitter to boot.

O: Well, I had high hopes for this one but unfortunately I think I overhyped it a bit. Billionaire in cognac barrels was great, but either this one wasn't aged long enough or the bold chocolate and chili pepper flavors have completely drowned it out here. I don't taste any barrel character at all. This tastes more or less like Chocolate Sombrero. In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd think someone was playing a trick on me. Too bad. It's a good beer, don't get me wrong, I was just expecting something next-level over normal CS.

Cognac and chocolate battle for dominance in the flavor and I'm the clear winner! Tastes a bit like a cognac-infused brownie with notes of flavorful (as supposed to hot) chilli peppers, vanilla, caramel, oak, coffee, brown sugar, mild fruit skins and a healthy dollop of alcohol. The cognac adds a pleasant almost fruity quality along with the barrel sweetness. Everything blends quite well and despite the ocassional bite of booze this goes down smooth.

Frothy, creamy, medium full body with carbonation that comes across as ample but not distracting. Coats the tongue well to produce a long finish with fudge, cognac, fruit skins, peppers and vanilla.

I've admittedly been a bit of a Clown Shoes fan boy since my first sip of Eagle Claw Fist years ago. Their prolific barrel aging experimentation they've done at an accelerated pace recently has shown to the world that, contract brewer or not, they KNOW great beer. This is an excellent variation of their Chocolate Sombrero/ Luchador En Fuego with an added complexity from the different barrels. I highly recommend getting ahold of this to try, particularly if you've enjoyed the base or bourbon barreled varieties.

Jet black color with excellent lace and retention. The nose is full of cognac and that transfers to the taste as well. Added layers of smoke, chocolate and a hint of cinnamon. The cognac just really takes over the base beer. I unfortunately don't get much in the way of chilies as the heat is really non-existent. Mouthfeel is thin. The ABV hides really well. Even as the beer warmed it would be hard to detect that this was 10%. Overall a very interesting concept, I just would have liked to see a thicker, fuller stout. The cognac barrel is really unique. I think with more vanilla and chilies this would be amazing. As it warms though, it balances together well. A nice overall offering from CS!

Love the artwork on most of their bottles, but this one is especially awesome. Usually when a brewery just focuses on artwork and fun names their beer sucks. But in Clown Shoes case they really do a good job on both, especially their stouts are awesome. Let's see how they do with Cognac barrels this time. Batch #1, bottled 6/23/14.

Pours a darker fizzy bubbly 1/2 finger head that attempts to get creamy but mostly bubbles and fizzy, not bad for 10% abv, nice lacing notched on the glass, and great legs, over a completely pitch black beer with no light getting through.

Nose is very interesting... a mix of different hard to pin point aromas, but not what I expected for stout aromas... it does have some roast in there, black malts, maybe some cocoa but hard to tell. Now I'm really starting to get it all, and it's loaded with sweet nectar and under aged cognac, like a green like fruity cognac and barrel, some toasted barrel and vanilla, raw toasted oak, surprisingly tequila like. Some creamy dark chocolate in the background, mild fudge and big cocoa nib like, little wafer cookie, all really hard to pull out behind the barrel notes.

Taste brings more dark malts, coming out stronger this time, wafer cookie as well, dark chocolate and cocoa nibs, little fudgey and rich creamy dark malts, a little black malt like roasty acrid note, and char. That's still over powered by the barrel notes, toasted oak, charred barrel and oak staves, a little vanilla, etc, with big sweet green underaged cognac again, a green fruit based spirit at least, not quite a big cognac flavor, and again an agave nectar like flavor almost tequila. Then hot alcohol washes over, tingles the tongue, warming the soul, and even brings a little alcohol flavor. The thick syrupy fudgey flavor lingers late, coats the mouth, and leaves the alcohol a bit as well, little bitterness and more tequila like green fruit based spirit that I could possibly call a cheap not so great cognac.

Mouth is fuller bod, a bit rich and creamy, decent carb, hot booze.

Overall, well, it's mixed. Base beer is good but gets overpowered by the cheap tasting cognac, the barrel comes through a lot, and it's quite hot with booze, but the big spirit flavor that comes through is not great, green under aged fruit based spirit brings even more heat and is not as enjoyable as I hoped. But still a decent beer.